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Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Strange Days Indeed by Tracy Thomson.
Marisa Malone contributes the exhibition essay:
In Tracy Thomson’s latest paintings we see a shift further into abstraction, the interior space often present in her work is breaking down even more. There are suggestions of walls from the straight lines that cut across an otherwise fluid and layered background. Yet these walls are transparent, unable to fully contain or mark a solid distinction between spaces. There is a juxtaposition of boundaries: inside vs outside, the built environment vs wilderness, containment vs irrepressible growth.
These paintings emerge from an intuitive practice that mirrors nature’s building and restructuring of itself. Working with mixed media on wood panels, Thomson starts by painting pieces of cut paper, then plays with their arrangement seeking interesting contrasts, textures, and shapes. There is a lot of permission in her process, an allowance of happenstance and spontaneity. “I call them reconstructed paintings,” she explains, “[the process] can feel like the world rebuilding itself, no urban planning, just life regenerating wherever it can.” Even with such immediate aesthetic decisions, we can see her work in conversation with painters such as Egon Schiele, Max Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka.
Thomson imagines future landscapes with a mix of a post-apocalyptic vision and a persistent hopefulness, “I always think that organics will regenerate in any environment, providing a continuum of life, though it will look quite different with unfamiliar beings and new flora and fauna.” Her work unearths possibilities of what this new scenery might look like. Our experience of a landscape rapidly changing in ways we have yet to understand is a recurring tension for Thomson.
Long interested in the unseen elements that shape us and our environment, this series probes the underside of rocks, logs, the psyche, culture, and myths; “I’ve always been fascinated by what is hidden beneath, the underbelly in both nature and human nature… the unseen liminal space in the night.” Her work speaks to the messy, layered, symbolic elements of creation, destruction, and adaptation. The collaged paper, thick coats of paint, embedded metallics, and found imagery, all combine to create a unique and uncanny world.
- Marisa Malone
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Marisa Malone grew up in the Sierra foothills of Nevada. She studied writing and literature at The Evergreen State College and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing has been published in BlazeVox Journal and Selfish Magazine, along with two self-published poetry chapbooks.
Strange Days Indeed is on view through May 3, 2024 at the Adjacent To Life gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City). Opening reception: Saturday, April 6, 7:00 - 9:00.
Posted by Mark Roth at April 6, 2024 08:22 AM